[11] D’Angelo, ‘Brown Sugar’

To go with her shoulder rolls, Junior’s been learning a new dance move. It involves rocking her head from side to side, and got a good airing to D’Angelo. Dad was clicking his fingers on the snap of the beat. Junior could see it was apt comment on this crisp, cool-as-frozen-cubes-of-sweet-potato-baby-meals record.

‘Brown Sugar’ is as smooth as particularly unruffled silk. It’s sparse yet polished, with dashes of strings and tinkles of hammond, and it drifts by in a smoky haze. You’d fall asleep if it wasn’t so insidiously funky. D’Angelo was riding the crest of the “nu soul” wave, Maxwell, Erykah Badu and Jill Scott in his wake, but it all came to nothing in the end. None of them pressed the garish commercial buttons.

10 down, 10 to go. Gets a bit more obvious now. Robson & Jerome, Rednex and Celine Dion all still to come.